How to squeeze a lemon

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A short while back, Flickr deleted my account which I’ve had with them for two years. Today, Flickr restored my account as you can see from the photo below.

Flickr

I’d like to share with you my exchange with Flickr. I initially inquired as to why I couldn’t log into my account, thinking that it couldn’t have been deleted and that my page on Flickr with the ominous message “This member is no longer active on Flickr” couldn’t really mean what I thought. This was their initial response:

Flickr account “ipanemic” was deleted by Flickr staff for
violating our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

# Do upload content that you have created.

Respect the copyright of others. This means don’t steal
photos or videos that other people have shared and pass them
off as your own. (That’s what favorites are for.)

# Don’t upload anything that isn’t yours.

This includes other people’s photographs and/or stuff that
you’ve collected from around the Internet. Accounts that
consist primarily of such collections may be terminated.

Flickr reserves the right to deactivate your account
without warning at any time.

Regards,
Emily

This was my response:

Subject: Re: [Flickr Case 1338655] Re: Logging in
From: me
Date: Wed, October 14, 2009 6:15 pm
To: Flickr

This is a large, large error because every BIT of content that was (and always will be) on my streams is content that was shot and copyrighted by me. Every photo and every video. I’ve also never posted anything from the internet and definitely not anything from someone else’s stream. I own and operate both ipanemic.com and headlessbuddha.com under which names I have copyrights.

So there has been a tremendous error here.

I’ve been a loyal fan and paying member of flickr for almost two years and will continue to do so. I love flickr. And I’ve LOVED my ipanemic account. I’ve used your service to network with people and have built up a rather nice collection of both friends and fans through that account. Now, suddenly and without warning, to a loyal and paying customer, my account has been deleted with me unable to access anything. I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours of my life on Flickr with it being part of almost my daily life. For me, Flickr has helped me become the photographer and person I am today. The thought that I would, as a photographer, take credit for other’s work or post stuff that didn’t belong to me is ludicrous. I had close to 5000 people following my work on flickr. They weren’t looking at other people’s work; they were looking at mine.

I’m confused as to how the decision was reached that ANY of my content wasn’t created by me or isn’t mine when I very clearly stated in my profile that that was the case and everything was marked as such. Could you please identify which work you’re saying violated the ToS and/or Community guidelines?

Thanks.
Scott

I didn’t hear from them.
And then I sent a follow up email stating that I was looking forward to the matter being resolved and my account being fully restored.
And then I sent them an email telling them I was still waiting for a response. Maybe two of those emails.

Then I received this:

Hello,

Your case was escalated to me.

I’m very sorry but once an account has been deleted, the
photos are removed and cannot be recovered.

Again, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.

I’m gone ahead and restored the account (without the
photos) and sent an email to the following address with log
in information:

xxxx@xxxx.xxx

I’ve also added a year of Pro to your account (in addition
to the 3 years you had remaining).

Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,
Omar

That was it.

I thought about it for a minute. I thought about it for a few, actually.

I sunk my lifeblood into building that account. At one point, I had over 5,000 photos in that account. I had roughly 500 people whose photostreams I was following. I had over 1.6 million views on that account. I had somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000 people following me. On that account.
Thousands of comments.
Tons of favorites.
People and friends in the social network which was a huge part of my life.
And then, whoosh! Gone. Everything.

And so…
There is nothing to argue here. There is nothing to question. There is nothing to do here except smile. Because now? Now I get to enjoy building this account from the ground up. I get to enjoy building up a network of friends again. I get to enjoy the comments, the feedback, the notes, the favorites on photos as I post them and as they sit there. And I get to enjoy every minute of this account. Just like I did the first time around.

Life is good. :) Beauty (Soft Edition)

38 thoughts on “How to squeeze a lemon”

  2. There is always a silver lining.

    However, I call BS. Are they asking us to believe that they run a major content network that they don’t backup on a regular basis? If so, I wouldn’t pay them another cent. More than likely us that they are too lazy to correct their own mistakes. Again, I wouldn’t pay them another cent. But that’s me.

    You seem to

  4. I want whatever you’re on. No way in hell I could be half as calm as you are. I sure hope you kept copies of everything you uploaded to flickr. Makes me think twice, thrice, four times about using the site as my storage medium.

  5. Wow, incredibly positive attitude. Good for you!! As for flickr, they are dirtbags in company form. They have done this several times and they honestly think that deleting your account merits a one year pro account for free. They do not value people’s time, and that is sad. You have the right attitude about this, but they definitely screwed the pooch on this one and do it way too often. I guess it should serve as a reminder that anything we put out there on the internet is not really ours

  6. “I’m very sorry but once an account has been deleted, the
    photos are removed and cannot be recovered.”

    definite BS. They just don’t want to deal with the hassle.

  9. I’m agree with Carlos, I would never go back to Flickr again, too, ’cause this may happen again?

    This can not be accepted.

    I was follower of you and very sad about what they have done.

    Regards.

  10. Pingback: This is too funny. : ipanemic.com

  11. I don’t often read the blogs in the Miami Herald but I was drawn to your plight with Flickr. I admire the way you handled your internal dialogue and found a silver lining in what could have been a very dark situation. Kudos to you and I wish you the best

  12. wow, i was wondering where you went lol

    yeah i stopped trusting flickr just a bit ago for some odd reason, got a portable hard drive… comes in handy

    def. follow what doug says tho, couldnt be said better

  13. Hey.. i see the buddha name connection..
    I probably would do the same you are doing..
    Just shows the way you like what you are doing .. (thats the way i see it dont bother if its not so..)
    I have enjoyed and probably learnt a lot of things from your account.
    Found your new account.. thanks to the street life you had created.. People who were in both your accounts could still follow you(in your words :D ).
    I am one among them.

  14. Pingback: A Matter of Stats : ipanemic.com

  16. Scott ( the street master, the Guru, not the Guru Pitka,)

    I think about that issue quite a bit, from time to time, It would have killed me, to think all the work and all the time and all that effort, was wiped away with a click from Flickr, and all they did was … sorry, but here is a year of free account. I know it’s got hurt.

    Well Scott, it’s 2010 ! start all over again, make some changes, re-develop some new ideas, come up with some even more off the wall concept, you are an awesome photographer, a camera in your hands can mean unpredictability.. so fuck the rest of the wall,
    and do your THANG !!!!!!!! If you need any assistance from me, in any way, like holding your lights, brushing off dust of models face, cleaning the studio before a shoot, well you know what I mean.

    Once again, all he best for the new year 2010 ! Hope to see some crazy stuffs coming our way ….

    dazs/discoverdazs

  20. I sometimes wonder if these sites delete those that become too big. Its like forming a union at a large manufacturing plant. You’ve become too powerful and your word could effect how they run things. Facebook limits the number of friends you can have all the while trying to force new ones down your throat. Things that make you go hmmmm WTF : D
    Btw saw an awesome Italian film last night. Malina. I recommend it. Ipanemic email me will ya. I have fotog questions for ya.
    peace.
    J>

  22. excellent story and better attitude!

    love your pictures and documentation of your photo-stream of conciousness!

    keep up the good work!

    and as always, thanks for sharing your art!!

  23. A strong second to Poly-Triad’s comments. I have been a follower of your work for some time. I am glad you still hang with Flickr, as it is a good medium, but even from personal experience, not really good on being fair or competent, as I have had several encounters with them – all negative.

    Love your work,

    Mr. J.

  26. I’m glad I read your story. You’ve got at least one free year. Is it real compensation for all you lost? Well, it is more than nothing.

    To all who may read your story and comments I would give (or repeat) a few tips:

    1) DON’T use flickr as the only storage of your photos or videos.

    2) Make BACKUP of any valuable data (like e.g. text you wrote on Flickr with information you like to keep)

    3) If you want to stay in touch with people you connect on Flickr – ask for their e-mail addresses.

    If you ask “why?” – please just read once again their statement: “Flickr reserves the right to deactivate your account without warning at any time.”

    To be clear: word “deactivate” is a slick euphemism for “delete.”

  27. I am pleased to see that the end of the story is not too bad, welcome back on Flik’r
    Continue your great work, every time I look forward to your photos.
    Stef

  29. Astounding. I too was a follower of yours… then lost contact. When it came time to pay my annual flickr dues I was seriously questioning to do so. At the time it was mostly due to the fact that I’ve been gradually feeling as if I was losing my photo mojo, and not so much how they were running their show (though I was aware).

    Since that time I have seen more and more questionable actions on the part of flickr against long standing members and friends of mine, all of whom were clearly established photographers and whose work and style was recognizable throughout their photostream.

    All this while at the same time I continued to fend off porn collectors from adding me as a friend and from adding my photos to their jerk-off collection of favorites, most of which were/are obviously images swiped from the internet.

  31. I found your photostream on Flickr again today, and read your profile, and found my way to this post, again. The surprise ending worked on me again, too. Great attitude.

    It’s not like your photos were lost, just the copies on Flickr. I would have been outraged, but you saw the situation with clarity. I hope I can learn from your example.

  32. Dear Scott:

    Oh, what a wretched thing to happen!! Those Keystone Kops are an outrage! Flickr is making billions — and all they can think about is whether some asshole in Podunk will complain to his Congressman that he saw a sweet little tit on Flickr!

    I’m sooo sorry — all that work destroyed with no due process whatsoever!

    Your exchanges of letters with them are such brilliant testimony to their insanity. I know you’ve had more than enough grief from them — but would it be okay to refer to this post of yours on MY off-Flickr blog (where I regularly bitch about Flickr’s pathetic efforts)??

    Thanks again, my friend.

    Hugz, Justine

  33. I’ve heard of this happening to more and more people. Flickr has changed since its beginning and some of the changes have not been for the betterment of the site. Good luck and thanks for sharing.

  34. Scott,
    My first Flickr site was taken down when I had 10,000 photos on it and 1.8 million views. It was 10 months of my life and I got a message that said that I did not flag my photos right. I lost the ability to set any controls and in about 6 days my site was taken down. I started my second site a little over a year ago. I am approaching 1.3 million views. Over the holidays I forgot to to flag a few images which showed no genitilia. I got an email that said I was a repeat offender and they were setting my site to moderate. That they would review my status after 90 days. I was getting over 15,000 views a day. I have not had them review my site yet, and I am down to between 3,000 and 5,000 views a day. I have enjoyed the Flickr experiance for the most part and at some point I might have the review.

    Keep up the great work.
    Robert

  35. I just wanted to say that I am so impressed with your wisdom and super positive attitude, 99% of us would have exploded super mad instead of looking for the positives in such a negative situation.

    I salute you Scott.

  36. You could probably spend. Lot of time and energy arguing as to why they deleted your account. It sounds like you are just pleased to get your account back and are looking forward to reinstating your photos. Good to have you back and look forward to enjoying your images all ove again

  37. Model Mayhem did virtually the same thing to me. They somehow linked my IP address with some other photographer in my building (we were probably piggy-backing off of the same wireless router provided by the landlord). When they deleted his or her account, they deleted mine, as well. I’d been on that site for over 6 years!

    I’d developed unbelievable networking and professional contacts. Devoted a huge portion of my life to it, paid them several hundred dollars for the VIP account. And at the whim of some idiotic moderator (or a few), a huge portion of 6 years of my life had vanished with no recourse.

    Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same friendly outcome as you. They decided to view my repeated messages for appeal as harassment. As they hardened their position against me, I just kept sending messages. It became obvious that they weren’t going to reinstate my account, so I just kept sending messages for appeal through their CAM system.

    Eff that site. I’ll never go back there again. I wish some other modeling site would exploit MM’s flaws, misgivings, and oversights and put them out of my misery.

    I’m glad you’re back on Flickr. I’ve followed you for a long time on there! You have some amazing work with some fantastic models!

  38. I too am a paying customer of flickr and they have no regard for customer service whatsoever. I understand a “non-pro” account being deleted, but when someone is paying them for storage there is no reason on earth for them to not send a note to resolve a matter as opposed to acting like God, pushing a button and making someone vanish into thin air.

    Until someone has had an opportunity to explain their side of whatever it is that has flickr on the attack, they have no business deactivating an account despite the fact they say they can. They don’t care that they may be wrong. They have the final say, period.

    Any company that acts as Nazi’s, can’t be trusted.

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